Customer Reviews

Elsie's Motherhood, Book 5 (Original Elsie Classics)

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I love all of the Elsie Dinsmore books, but this is one of my favorites. Elsie Dinsmore Travilla makes a wonderful Christian parent along with her husband Edward. Their children are not perfect, just like all of mankind, and yet they train their children in a godly way. As always, one can see how Elsie puts her faith in God, especially when the Ku Klux Klan attacks their house in the intent to harm her husband, and when her eldest child, Elsie, becomes very sick. Also, she learns to grieve for herself and for others, yet rejoice for those who are Christians and have only gone before to that wonderful place called heaven. I recommend this book to girls and ladies of all ages, mothers, married, and single.

"Elsie's Motherhood" is one of my favorite Elsie books. Elsie is a good mother to her children, and her children are very virtuous and obedient. I think Elsie handles her children's problems very well. I enjoyed reading this book, and it is very well-written for girls of all ages.

First of all, I love most 19th-century fiction, preachy though much of it is. I grew up on Louisa May Alcott and Charles Dickens, who had a gift for bringing their readers into their worlds, and for showing, not telling, young readers how to live an upright life.

And then there's Martha Finley's Elsie oeuvre. Allow me to lay out the plotlines in each of the books in this series: 1) A child does something Bad. 2) Rigorous discipline follows. 3) The child remains rebellious. 4) More rigorous discipline ensues. 5) The child finally admits to his/her wrongdoing and begs for forgiveness. 6) The child's abuser--I mean, male authority figure--magnanimously lays on the forgiveness, and makes all the unpleasantness go away. This device occurs over and over again, multiple times, in each of the Elsie books.

In the Elsie books, there are only two kinds of characters: born-again Christians, who are uniformly Good, and everyone else, who is, without exception, Bad--slacktwisted, equivocal about honesty, and self-indulgent (and who will certainly burn in hell).

It seems that many people are fond of the Elsie books and look forward to inflicting them on--I mean, sharing them with--their own children. If you are one of these people, I encourage you to have an ongoing discussion with your child about them. Ask, "Why do you think the black characters are portrayed the way they are? Do you think it shows any respect for these characters and their lives and struggles? Tell me what you think about Elsie's relationship with her father. Don't you think it's a little, well, much?"